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Herman Miller Soars

Shares of office-furniture manufacturer Herman Miller Inc., surged after it reported a 20 percent jump in first-quarter profit. Herman Miller said orders for the quarter reached their highest level in five years, and the company forecast fiscal second-quarter sales and profit above analysts’ estimates. The company also issued second-quarter guidance well above Wall Street expectations, sending the company’s shares up $3.30, or 11.3 percent, to $32.50 on the INET electronic exchange, after finishing the Nasdaq session up 62 cents, or 2.2 percent, at $29.20. Shares have ranged between $25.77 and $32.65 over the past year. For the quarter ended Sept. 2, Herman Miller earned $28.5 million, or 43 cents per share, compared with $23.7, or 34 cents per share, for the same quarter in 2005. Revenue grew to $449.7 million from $430.9 million in the year-ago period. The results beat Street predictions. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had expected a profit of 39 cents per share on $447.7 million in sales. Herman Miller said the increases came despite the impact of an extra week of operations included in the year-ago period. Average weekly sales, accounting for the extra week of operations in the prior year period, increased 12.4 percent, the […]

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SatCon Gets 10MW Orders for Photovoltaic Inverters

SatCon Technology Corporation® (Nasdaq NM: SATC), a leading developer and manufacturer of power electronics and controls for renewable energy markets, announced that over the last four months it has received multiple purchase orders from new and existing customers exceeding 10 Megawatts in photovoltaic inverters. Over the course of the past 12 months and current fiscal year, the Company has recorded over 26.5MW of photovoltaic inverter orders and has shipped over 21MW. Currently, the Company has a record backlog in this market sector of approximately $4.5 million, all of which is scheduled for shipment by the end of the current calendar year. In addition to this record backlog of short-cycle business, SatCon’s Stationary Power Systems Division has a backlog of another $1.6 million in other alternative energy inverters and over $10 million in industrial power quality and avionic power distribution products, which are complementary to the Company’s renewable energy product portfolio. This total backlog exceeding $16 million is a 165% increase compared to a year ago, when the orders on hand were $6 million. “Our strategy to focus our Stationary Power Systems business on both renewable energy inverters and complementary industrial power quality and conditioning products, is paying off in terms […]

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SunOpta Acquires Purity Life Health

SunOpta Inc. (Nasdaq:STKL; TSX:SOY). SunOpta announced it has acquired Purity Life Health Products, Canada’s largest independent supplier of natural health care products. The Toronto-based company is a distributor of health and beauty aids, vitamins, supplements and nutraceuticals. Purity operates warehousing and distribution operations to service customers across Canada and also operates a packaging facility where a number of supplement and nutraceutical products are produced under the brand names Nature’s Harmony, Vivitas and RxBalance. The company employs 155 people. Purity has a long history of profitable sales across Canada, and some sales in the U.S. Revenue in the current year will be approximately US$50 million. The acquisition is projected to be immediately accretive to SunOpta’s earnings and the Purity operations will form a key component of SunOpta’s rapidly growing natural, organic and specialty foods distribution business in Canada. The addition of natural and organic health and beauty aids, vitamins, supplements and nutraceuticals is consistent with SunOpta’s strategy to expand the breadth of complimentary products and services offered to its current customer base across Canada. Jeremy N. Kendall, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer commented “SunOpta has been distributing some of Purity’s products in Western Canada for sometime and we are delighted that […]

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Solaria Raises $22 Million

Solaria has completed $22 million in Series B financing. The funding round includes investments from Sigma Partners and NGEN Partners, two leading venture capital firms; Q-Cells AG, the world’s largest independent manufacturer of crystalline silicon solar cells; and Moser Baer, India’s largest and the world’s second largest manufacturer of removable optical storage media. Solaria’s technology platform enables the solar industry to produce two to three times the number of PV modules from the same amount of silicon material used in today’s conventional modules. “Q-Cells is very pleased to be making an investment in Solaria,” said Q-Cells CEO Anton Milner. “We believe our investment will help ensure that Solaria’s technology can drive down the cost of solar PV and further accelerate the growth and expansion of the solar industry.” “Solaria’s low-concentration solar technology promises to dramatically reduce the photovoltaic (PV) industry’s cost of silicon-based solar modules,” said Sigma Partners Managing Director Wade Woodson. “We evaluated many renewable energy investment opportunities and Solaria’s approach really impressed us because it emphasizes reliability, manufacturability and compatibility.” “This infusion of capital will help us to achieve Solaria’s goal of enabling low-cost, high efficiency PV modules and systems for our customers,” said Solaria CEO Suvi Sharma. […]

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GE Energy to Supply Solar Equipment to Korean PV Project

GE Energy’s technology has been selected for one of the largest solar power projects in Asia, a three-megawatt facility being developed at Yong Gwang, Korea. GE will supply its high efficient 200-watt solar power modules for the project, along with balance-of-system equipment. KD Solar Co., Ltd. of Seongnam City, Korea, the EPC contractor for the project, is responsible for engineering, system design and installation. The solar installation is being developed by Korea Hydro Nuclear Power Co., which supplies more than 40% of Korea’s power. Electricity generated by the Yong Gwang solar power plant will be transmitted to the national grid. “This is a milestone project for the development of solar power in Korea and in all of Asia, and we are extremely pleased that our technology will support this effort,” said Victor Abate, vice president of renewable energy for GE Energy. “It is GE’s largest single order for solar equipment globally to date, further illustrating that solar power is gaining broad awareness as a viable, commercial technology for clean energy.” The GE solar equipment for the Yong Gwang project will be manufactured at the company’s facilities in Newark, Del. and will be shipped to the project site over the next […]

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Quantum and Synthesis Announce First Syn-Fuel Generator

Synthesis Energy Systems, Inc. (OTC: SYMX) and Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide, Inc. (Nasdaq: QTWW) have announced the successful operation of the world’s first engine generator using synthesis gas or “syngas” as fuel, to be deployed in China. The engine generator set, a 125 kW Kohler engine based on a General Motors 8.1 liter V-8 block, successfully, and repeatedly produced stabilized power. The syngas used as fuel was identical to syngas produced by the U-Gas® coal gasification technology developed by the Gas Technology Institute and licensed to SES. “Successful operation of the generator set is a major step forward in the cost effective utilization of Synthesis Gas,” stated Timothy Vail, President and CEO. “The operation of an automotive engine as well as power production from gas created by our proprietary U-Gas® technology demonstrates the flexibility to use syngas in a wide array of applications including power generation.” Earlier this year, SES awarded a contract to Quantum’s team to develop the world’s first syn-fuel powered generator set under a contract engineering/development program. Quantum is the industry leader in the development of automotive systems based on hydrogen fuel. The combination of SES’ knowledge of the gasification process and Quantum’s hydrogen engineering skills […]

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